A talk delivered at a junior college who were inaugurating a new library facility.

1. L J Haravu
Trustee, Kesavan Inst. Of Information and Knowledge Management

2.  What is the big picture of the society that we live
in?
 How does a library fit into the big picture?
 Where do you as students fit into the big picture?
 How can you as students of benefit from
Libraries?
 What choices you have?

3.  1. Age is not a bar for learning,
 2. Quest for learning is an age old hunger that
human beings have had since thousands of years,
 3. Without that hunger for learning, man would
have remained in his primitive state, not much
better than chimpanzees, and
 4. If one can keep on learning then life becomes
interesting and meaningful.

4.  Our capacity to communicate with each other and
access information, irrespective of where it is
located has dramatically changed.
 The Internet and resources/services available has
made this possible.
 We live in a global village where distance is
measured not by miles but by the speed with
which you can communicate with your peers and
the access needed information.

5.  Increased competition,
 Increased inter dependence
 Greater opportunities for collaboration and
knowledge sharing
 Globalization is synonymous with networking

6. “In the 21st
Century, an illiterate
person is not one who cannot
read or write, but one who will not
learn, unlearn and relearn.” Alvin
Toffler

7.  Information and knowledge drives most of our
activities
 Countries have become knowledge economies
 Countries and organizations to remain competitive
must innovate, must create new knowledge
through R & D.
 To do this they must be alert to new developments
and take advantage of these, encourage
innovation.

8.  To sustain and grow in a knowledge economy,
individuals and organizations must also be
engaged in lifelong learning. (growth
economists: ‘a country’s capacity to take
advantage of the Knowledge Economy
depends on how quickly it can become a
‘learning economy’)
 Learning requires the use of new technologies
to access global information and knowledge

9.  There is so much information and it is growing so
fast that discovering useful knowledge and
information is a challenge.
 Formal education has become less about passing
on information and more on teaching people how
to learn.
 Libraries have the potential to become key players
in helping people, governments and organizations
to become lifelong learners.

10.  Where do libraries fit in the big picture?
 Libraries too have changed
◦ until the mid 1900’s, libraries were highly collection-
oriented. Ownership of materials was the emphasis.
◦ By the 1960’s, library budgets fell. Emphasis shifted from
ownership to access. Result was cooperation and inter-
lending of materials between libraries.
 Public library system, academic library system
 Newer forms of informational materials appeared in 1980s
◦ Now libraries provide access to such materials

11.  By 1990s, the variety and volume of informational
materials grew to gigantic proportions.
 The rate of growth of such materials became
astronomical. New items of information keep on making
their appearance.
◦ (e.g., 100 million videos are added every day in YouTube
alone)
 We have an ocean of information that like the universe
seems to expand continuously.
 It has become necessary to distinguish between
information and knowledge. All information is not
knowledge

12.  It is not enough only to have access to the ocean
of information, you also need people who will
guide you to be selective.
 Many librarians have specialized in this. From
information managers they have become
Knowledge facilitators.
 Libraries have grown from:
◦ Building Collections  Providing access to information
 Facilitating access to knowledge.

13.  You must be prepared to face the challenges of
the global village.
 Sooner or later, you should be prepared to
compete, collaborate, leverage your skills, i.e.,
participate effectively in a networked knowledge
economy.
◦ To do this, you should resolve to be a lifelong learner. All
means for learning should be explored and used.
◦ The library can be an important partner in this.

14.  Many students have a very inadequate understanding of
the value of a library.
 They think that it is a place where textbooks are stacked
and all that the librarian does is to ask you not to make
noise.
 Students do not know that a lot of effort has gone into
acquiring useful material.
◦ These are well organized.
◦ There is a catalogue (sometimes online) of the library which you
can search.
◦ The librarian is capable of advising you on how to search for
information within the library and also in online sources.

15.  Don’t think of the library only as a storehouse of
textbooks that you need to pass examinations.
 Think of the library as a portal to learning.
 Don’t stop at just reading your textbooks.
◦ Ideas discussed by your teachers and in textbooks
have been around for many years. Read the works of
other author’s who have written about the same ideas.
◦ Don’t stop at reading course-related books. Look also at
related areas and contemporary writings. This will
expand your horizons.

16.  Learning involves reading, thinking,
discussion, questioning, application,
analysis and synthesis.
◦ Only when all of these are used that learning is
transformed into knowledge.
◦ You will see the big picture context in which your
textbook concepts exist
◦ This will expand your horizons and prepare you for the
challenges of the future.
◦ In all this libraries can be your partners.

17.  Our educational objectives are very textbook/
examination oriented. Students do not explore
things on their own.
 If you make it a habit to read widely and discuss
with other students and teachers, your ability to be
critical and analytical improves.
◦ Here also the library can be an important partner
 Such training will help you immensely when you
move to graduate and postgraduate levels.

18.  The difference between an average student and a
bright student is simply that the latter does more
than listening to lectures;
 He or she takes pain to think about what he heard,
he reads more about it, asks questions if
necessary. This makes what he learned truly his
knowledge.
 The library can make a difference to all students.
Please think about this?

19.  Study conducted in 2005 in the US found that
those students who regularly visited libraries
ended up with higher scores. Such students also
used electronic information.
 Conclusion: The library is still relevant today in
spite of wide availability of electronic/web
sources.
 Conclusion: The library complements
web/electronic sources. These do not make the
library redundant.

20.  Wrong impression that the Internet and Google is the answer
to all their education and passing exams.
 When a teacher gives an assignment, students rush to the
computer, type a few words into Google; come up with
thousands of links.
 Look at the first few links; cut a few lines and paste this into
their assignment.
 This is the best way to fool yourself and your teacher.
 You will be no better than a copying machine which can never
become learned in spite of copying hundreds of scholarly
pages.

21.  Everything is available on the Internet. This is one of the
unfortunate misconceptions.
 The fact is that the Internet contains many opinionated
and unauthentic information.
 Don’t sacrifice quality of information for convenience.
 All kinds of people put information on the Internet. On the
other hand a library’s collection will be carefully evaluated
for its value as an authentic contribution to the subject.
◦ Discuss what you find on the Internet with librarians and teachers.
They will be able to point out to useful sources.

22.  As students you must actively make suggestions to
the library to get newer materials and for the provision
of access to information services.
 You can make the library as useful as you want it to
be. Demanding quality materials and services.
 Ask the librarian to help you to help yourselves by
teaching you how to get the best out of the library and
electronic and web resources.
 Don’t be a passive user of the library. Involve yourself
in its development and growth.

23.  You can choose to ignore the library and other
sources of learning
OR
 You can think of these as opportunities for
acquiring not only knowledge for the limited
purpose of passing your exams but also to
become competent people who can hold their
head high in a competitive world.
The CHOICE IS YOURS

24.  The cream in a vessel of milk always rises
to the top. Aim to be the cream by
becoming an important element in your
organization, government or country.
 This can happen only grow in knowledge
and in your capacity to keep on learning.